Unlikely Leader

When He Played For The Bulls In The Early '90s, Stacey King Hardly Seemed Destined To Become A Head Coach. But He's Giving It A Go--and Enjoying Instant Success--with The Rockford Lightning Of The Cba.

January 31, 2001|By Scott Merkin. Special to the Tribune.

ROCKFORD — The Rockford Lightning coach's show, broadcast live from Big Al's Bar in Giovanni's restaurant on the outskirts of town, is coming back from its final commercial break. Before host Jay Sorgi can ask a few more questions about the Quad City Thunder, tonight's opponent, a fan's call has the floor.

"First of all, I want to say you're doing a great job, coach," Brad from Rockford said, addressing the Lightning's new boss, who is preparing for his fifth game as the man in charge.

"But I want to know if you borrowed that new triangle offense from someone else," the caller adds with a touch of sarcasm. "It looks sort of familiar."

The new coach laughed at the question, a laugh as familiar as the triangle to Bulls fans but as distant as the team's first three NBA titles. It's a laugh that was most commonly heard following dead-on impersonations of Bill Cartwright after a long day of practice.

It's a laugh that belongs to Stacey King, one of the more unlikely former NBA players to become a coach. King was better known for keeping the Bulls loose, and for grousing about playing time, after being chosen out of Oklahoma with the sixth pick of the 1989 draft.

"Most of my teammates probably would have said I would end up on television, in movies or as a comedian," King said, smiling. "I would be on stage just like Eddie Murphy. This would be the last job they would think I would be doing. Anything but this."

But there was King on the sideline at the Rockford MetroCentre, in his perfectly tailored suit, leading the Continental Basketball Association's Lightning to their fourth victory in five games under his guidance after a 4-11 start. King has a 6-2 record since taking over on Jan. 15, replacing Bob Salmi, who resigned to return to a behind-the-scenes job on NBC's basketball broadcasts.

Responding to the prodding of friends in the CBA office, King had become an assistant coach with the Lightning before the season. He figured the job might lead to a head-coaching opportunity, but not 15 games into his first season.

King also believed he could turn around the Lightning, but not this quickly.

"I have a good feel for Stacey and he has good feel for us," said forward Korleone Young, who went straight from high school to the Detroit Pistons in 1998. "He is a guy who has been where we're all trying to go.

"This is the first time this season I'm having fun playing because Stacey makes it fun. I feed off his energy, and he feeds off our energy. Stacey is really the reason I'm in Rockford."

King, 32, is not your typical coach. After two key baskets put the Lightning in control late in the Quad City game, he greeted his players with chest bumps at a timeout.

He only sat down during the breaks, laying out options within the triangle for his young team. Otherwise he was in constant motion on the sideline, keeping a running commentary going with his players and the officials.

"I watched Phil [Jackson] on the bench during games and he's usually sitting there like this," King said, affecting a classic hand-in-chin Jackson pose. "I told myself that's how I was going to be when I was coaching. But when my first game started, in that first moment, I became Doug Collins, running up and down the sideline.

"My style is actually a lot like Phil's, especially how he handled players. They all have personalities, and to mesh them together while not putting too many restrictions on them takes a lot of work."

Given their history, Jackson is something of an unusual role model for King.

"During my first two years with him, I despised about 95 percent of Phil's approach," he said. "Now I see the big picture that I didn't see before."

King swears by the triangle, which Tex Winter developed and Jackson implemented. It's something of an anomaly in the freewheeling CBA, traditionally home to fire-when-ready basketball.

"We're taking more 18- to 20-foot jumpers instead of casting up three-pointers in one-on-one situations, which seems to be more the norm in the CBA," King said. "The ultimate goal here is to get to the NBA, so I'm trying to establish an NBA system. I'm trying to make this entire environment as close as possible to the NBA."

King has his players watch a lot of game tape and concerns himself with their mental preparation as much as their physical. He says it takes at least a year to really grasp the triangle, but he has been impressed by his players' adaptability as initial skepticism gave way to acceptance.

"The basic set isn't that hard," said Lightning guard Gabe Frank, a Glenbrook North graduate. "It's the reads that are difficult. But if we're out of position by one step, Stacey will stop practice and correct us. He's very precise."